February 18, 2025, 7:00 PM - Work Session and Special Meeting of the Board

001good evening I'd like to call the special meeting of February 18th 2025 of the mton School District Board of Directors to order please stand for the pledge of allegiance alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all the public is hereby advised of the audio video recording of this meeting for purposes of rebroadcasting tonight we have two meetings special meeting matter on preliminary budget and then our February work session of the board all board members are present with two board members attending virtually Miss Shonda and Mr mki next is guest and schedule speakers Dr Zerby thank you madam president this evening uh we have no guests and scheduled speakers but uh the purpose of the

002meeting is to approve one matter uh before the board and with that I'll turn it over to uh Miss Stephie our director of Business Services thank you Dr Zerby good evening the preliminary budget as advertised includes expenses totaling 139 million 84,5 revenues totaling 138 m710 1884 and the use of fund balance totaling 1,9 93,173 the following motion is on the agenda for consideration approve the 22526 preliminary budget as presented on the pde 2028 in the amount of 139 m841 58 requiring a 5.1% tax increase and authorize Administration to apply for special education referendum exception in accordance with act one that's that ends our presentations for this evening Dr Zerby I'd like to make a statement with that following that one being that based on the conversations of the board over the past uh several meetings

003that we have I just want to really um have the administration and the board work together over the next several months to really work out the programming needs of our district and work on our fiscal respons ibility to our public and so with that I just ask you both to keep continuing to work down so that we could get our millage rate to a level where we all feel that's acceptable as we go forward in this process so thank you we'll now move to public comment and board action items yes um before we move to public comment could we just get the the context of this motion please that you know the context of it being having to be posted for 20 days and just so to provide some understanding and um for audience members

004and maybe others on the board absolutely so uh as as part of the uh regular Act One budgetary process uh the board of school directors were presented in January with What's called the uh proposed preliminary budget and that is a an initial look at uh what the administration has put together in terms of uh expenditures and revenue assumptions uh for the 2526 uh school year and just like in uh previous years uh we've had a budget process by which uh we have a a preliminary look uh in in some years we've determined that um we we generally need to look at the act one as the limit for which we would have to raise taxes and in other years we've had uh to file for what's on the agenda here this evening is to consider

005the act one special education referendum exceptions uh in doing so we then presented that uh as a again a a preliminary budget which means it's not the final budget for which the board is enacting and there's no uh finalization to this other than allowing uh assuming that it's passed allowing that the administration apply for the special educ exception going above the Act One index which is currently uh 4% and this motion on the agenda is currently listed at 5.1% um we would then as uh as Miss canro has charged the administration to work with the board in order to bring uh the uh uh the budget into a an acceptable level to not only uh fiscally but also in in programmatically to make sure that uh we're supporting the the needs of our of our

006students going forward um I hope that gives us some context or you looking for any other particular details um could you talk about the use of the fund balance as it relates to this budget sure so as Miss Stephie mentioned uh that in order to uh the budget that we originally presented uh in January to the board actually was with approximately a 6.3% uh tax increase it was then decided uh to advertise based on a motion proposed by the board in in late January that the uh uh that the that the board has had um agreed to have advertised a budget that wouldn't exceed 5.1% and in doing so in order to balance a budget that was presented to the board that required more Revenue than what 5.1% would provide uh the district would have

007to uh utilize fund balance uh temporarily as part of a process not saying that we would or wouldn't use it as a final part of our budget but generally speaking in order to submit uh such a request as it as is before here this evening that would be the only legitimate way to do that at this time and knowing that this is not the final budget uh knowing that um things like healthc care other uh uh discussions at our recent finance committee meeting talking about uh being able to make some significant reductions uh have all the indication that we' be able to bring that down to some other uh more acceptable realm does yeah and the understanding is that my understanding was that the budget had to be posted the day after our voting meeting

008so there was no time to make any changes to it so we just made up the difference with the use of the fund balance that that is accurate thank you with that we'll move to public comment on board action items the board now will take comments on board action items this is an opportunity for residents to comment on matters that are to be decided upon as outlined on the agenda the board asks that you keep your comments to three minutes or less the board of school directors may choose to respond to matters following the conclusion of the comments on board action items uh before we start the clock um given the limited number of members of the public in the audience that'll be commenting on something as important as the budget I would like to

009ask for an additional 60 seconds uh of time to comment and ask questions of the board regarding the budget asking questions or comments you you understand that we don't answer them as you ask them during understand I would like to have additional time to ask the questions I have formulated and comments on budget yes that's fine thank you very much Brian eraw Lower Providence well my first question you've answered and how you went from a 6.3% tax increase down to 5.1 and this budget should be rejected because it contains a $1.1 million plug not use a fund balance it's a plug and nothing's been done over the past month to close that Gap I understand having to post the budget but I expect to see a presentation on what have you found so far to

010close that Gap are you going to be using fund balance Paul you got to be aware that this is not a sound budget practice at the January meeting the administration presented a budget with a 6.3% tax increase I commend the four board members who stood up against this the board then went into an executive session and when you returned Mr WI you made a motion you amended the motion to Max the tax increase at 5.1% how did you get to 5.1% were there deliberations and discussions in executive session do you can you share with me your analysis that shows that a 5.1% tax increase will be sufficient to provide for the educational needs of students in the district and will Al possibly even improve our rankings I would like to see that analysis Mr Dr

011Zerby has my email address uh you can email that to me at your at your convenience the budget process is still broken at mathon you're still for example comparing next year's budget to this year's budget a completely faulty analysis as shown by slide eight of your presentation which deals with special education thirdparty support costs if you compare budget to budget it looks like a reasonable Trend one year I budget 32 3.2 million next year a budget 3.4 million next year a budget 3.9 million seems like a good progression of trending when you look at actual it goes from 3.8 to 6 million your budgets fell 50% off comparing budget to budget makes sense when actual is equal to budget you're way off this is just one category when I come back for Courtesy FL I'll

012talk about last year's Financial results and I'll show you how many examples are where the budget is wrong you can't compare budget to budget you got to look at actual and you got to look at a forecast I've said this many times Paul as the whole Finance member of on this board you got to be changing this and fixing the process and also I didn't hear anything why special ID costs are so far over budget is it what's what's driving it nobody said anything about that are we throwing good money after bad are the processes working are students seeing the benefits of this indal spending or we just throwing money away it'd be good to know that there was a lot of discussion about the past seven years the Act One tax the tax increase

013have been less than the Act One index which is great but over that period you still had budget surpluses of $20 million in total so that's totally irrelevant analysis with respect to the new High School part of the presentation and I think there were probably three to four presentations to the board five to six to the public I attended a couple of them a lot of discussion about your ability to build a new high school and have tax increases equal to the Act One index or less out of the gate three months after that last presentation you show up with 6.3% of a tax increase during those presentations I told you no Finance person looked at these at those forecasts they were prepared by somebody with a not without a financial background nobody in the

014board challenged them has anybody on the board asked the administration to go back and redo those projections to assure that this District can afford a new high school should you decide to build it I've never heard anybody ask for that it's to do Mr I encourage you to reject this budget it's got a big plug in it thank you mrop Jim Jim mik War sester um Jen smoke spoken like somebody who's up for reelection you know your initial oh let's go look at this real close and then you give him another minute which was good but to me it's re-election time um I don't have much to say that he hasn't said but what efforts have been made to cut the spending to get the tax increase down I haven't seen any evidence of it

015at any of the meetings to to Mr earnshaw's point you want to raise our taxes 5.1% and apply for special education exemption or exception I'm against it you're out of control spending is going to harm senior citizens on fixed income and you're also going to harm our property values evidenced by an already decreasing assessments and on top of all this you want to build a $425 million new high school you guys all should be ashamed we were told in August of 2024 the projected tax increase was going to be 1.4% that's six months ago we're being told for this upcoming year 1.4 you guys were at 63 now you're at 51 why what happened you know tell us what's going on to be that far off in your estimates indicates to me a lack of

016understanding of your budget and a Severe problem with your budgeting skills you owe us an explanation you owe us a presentation let's talk special ed I'm not going to repeat the numbers Mr erw said but according to your business manager's presentation for 2122 you had a $553,000 deficit 2223 it was $2.5 Million 2324 it was 3.1 why no why no adjustments I mean to his point no explanation no presentation and you guys like oh you know what we'll just apply for the special ed exemption make it 6.3 irresponsible guys um Paul I place this at your feet you're the finance committee chair and it's a mess I think you need to rethink your position uh Miss canro Drummond and Winters I want to bring you back to run for election land Jen see your picture

017nice you got a nice picture on there 33 Republican School Board raised taxes 33 times in 34 years remember that that was what you ran on you've raised taxes every year since you've been on the board Mr Drummond same thing Mr wter same thing how do you answer that were the Republicans messed up or maybe you're messed up I suggest voting against the motion because if $138 million or $139 million is not enough for you it never will be thank you anyone else for a public comment okay seeing none we will move to items for board action may have a motion to approve the 2025 26 preliminary budget as presented as the pde 2028 in the amount of 139 m84 158 requiring a 5.1 tax increase and authorize the administration to apply for special education

018referendum exemption in accordance with act one may I have a motion Mr Winters may I have a second Miss Purdue any comments or questions all right seeing none for those that are virtual you could just say I for yes all those in favor all those opposed no all right motion carries we have a 7-2 thank you we will now move to Courtesy of the board the board of school directors will now provide an opportunity for residents to make comment on matters that are or may before the board the board asks that you keep your comments to three minutes or less the board of school directors may choose to respond to matters following the conclusion of the comments please submit questions via email to information methacton.org well that was quick you got SE Jim mik War

019sest you got $7 million in the general fund or maybe six after Dave took a million away you got 14 million in the capital reserve you got $1.6 million budget surplus last year you over taxed Us by $23 million over the past 10 years or 10 years of budgetary surpluses after all that you still don't have enough money you want to raise our taxes 5.1% now you want to pass on more pay to the taxpayers by trying to build a $425 million new high school which definitely will affect us for the next 30 years it's simply irresponsible okay at this rate of Taxation you're eventually going to depress our property values and we saw that at the finance committee because assessments are starting to go down resulting in decreased revenues to which you'll have to

020raise our taxes even more and then we get the death spiral and you guys are right about there right now to date I have not observed any serious effort to cut your wasteful spending and to decrease the tax increases although Miss canro is like hey let's devote the next couple of months to doing the job what if that doesn't happen will you step down will you not run for reelection I suggest not building your new school that's number one because you can't afford it we we can't afford it um to maximize effort to cutting your wasteful spending which means sit down discuss it look at the budget look at the problems especially special ed Special Ed's out of control you're off by three two three million bucks and if you're off by two3 million there

021where else in the budget are you off so you know somebody's got to take charge because obviously the head of the finance committee is not doing its job um you can use the money in the general fund to get the tax increase below the Act One index he threw a million in throw another million in but then take the money out of the capital reserve to replenish the general fund which I've asked questions and Mr witer says you can do that tell us that's an option tell us why you won't do that um and then we had a $1.6 million Sur plus last year why don't we use that why cuz somebody spent it there's your problem we had a $1.6 million surplus nobody says hey you know what we may have a budgetary problem

022next year why don't we use that Surplus to offset they spent it on something else there's the problem here is a spending problem and you guys are in charge of it thank you any other for Courtesy of the floor uh Brian araw La Providence um Miss con thanks for the minute earlier um and thank you for your comments at the beginning of the meeting about having to get into the financials and budget and all that stuff that's that's a good good idea but my question is why are there no discussions on the agenda for this meeting the work session following this meeting or next week's meeting about the budget or about financial results or about projections or about anything Financial other than the recurring list of bills treasury report budgetary transfer Etc there is nothing

023on the agenda you've already lost a month if you don't do anything else this month you're going to lose another one time's going to run out between now and may um talking about the last year's audit report $1.6 million surplus driven by the the lack of a transfer to the capital reserve that was budgeted I see to remember a member of the public talking about that transfer to Capital whether it's really necessary the administration everyone in the board we got to do we need the money for Capital push comes to shove you just don't do it you just ignore it resulting in a surplus you got to look at a forecast during last year's budget process I did a very simple forecast I took 10 months of actual results annualized it looked at things like

024interest earnings earned income taxes state state funding and I could tell that your budget for this current year was short for 2023 2024 sure enough interest favorable to budget $750,000 earned income taxes half million favorable at the time we knew the state was going to put more money in the schools you didn't change the budget $700,000 favorable in last year's Financial results you could have had a 0% tax increase last year easily and still posted a surplus with those variances you got to look at a forecast Paul you get it you got to look at a forecast it's not that hard 80% of the expenses are fixed the same amount every month it's not that difficult to forecast get some meetings on the agenda if you got to schedule extra meetings to go over the

025budget do it why not you got limited time in meetings that are scheduled now between now and may when the budget's got to be finalized don't just come out with a 5.1% tax increase Paul no comments on how you came up with that number none how does it make sense we got a million dollar plug in the budget you just approved please got to get your arms around this thank you anyone else for Courtesy of the floor see none any other comments or Mr winters i' like to make a couple comments um Miss stepy can you explain the 1.6 million surplus in the principle of surplus and why there was a decision not to move money to the capital reserve I think there was $122,000 moved to the capital reserve can you just explain that

026a little deeper please again sure so the transfer was not completed in order to maintain a 7% unassigned fund balance y so there was a budget for $750,000 there was not 750 so there was a choice made uh doctor thereby between keeping it at the 7% uh un unassigned fund balance or moving the 750 to the capital reserve is that correct that's correct so the residual left to move to the capital reserve was $12,000 the other million dollar was related to prepaids is that right Miss stuffy correct correct there we go thank you um okay that's good enough for now any other comments Miss Purdue um probably just one comment from me and I think maybe um Miss Cano you hit on it in the um in the beginning of the meeting I know we

027are starting the budget process but I do want to I do agree and do challenge the administration and the finance committee to really work on um work on what we currently have in the proposed um budget and try to get the number down to um what we've said before right I think the decision seemed like we made a compromise to get to this point of the five 5.1% tax um increase but I think we can definitely there are rooms for improvement but I also know I've sat here on this board and we start usually at a certain percentage and the finance committee along with the administration work on the budget um as we proceed and usually we're able to come back with um a number that the board can feel comfortable with and that um

028members in the public can support and I will challenge that I think one of the things I wanted to highlight is that in the past when we've sat here we usually do have an update um as the budget process proceed we do provide an update to the public and I would like to ask what are our next step for after this this special meeting what are the next steps that we expect to see from the finance committee as far as provided an update to the board and also to the public so Miss Purdue um I um at the finance committee meeting there was an update related to and as explained in the finance committee meeting uh Miss Stephy and the administration have continued to work on the budget the point of posting the same uh

029having the 5.1 is because that was what was posted for the last 20 days they have already identified six or 700,000 related to changes on assumptions for state revenue there's been assumptions related to peers there's a lower uh medical cost I think all those are documented in the minutes so um please reference the minutes please have the community talk about the additional steps we've taken but you don't see the change because the posting of the budget was so the good news right the good news is it's gone the right direction right but it has not gone to 1 million 93274 which is what the fund balance was and the reason that is the number is because Miss tephy had one day uh to make the change so it is a plug because the identification of

030the reductions have not been identified and the reason that we came up with 5.1 is I pulled it out of my toket to be honest because it was obvious that we were not going to get uh five votes for a 6.3 so we had to come up with something that hopefully somebody would change their vote somewhere between 6.3 and four so I randomly picked 5.1 and luckily it had passed hopefully we get the 4% but I I welcome anybody to participate in any of these meetings and participate in any of these suggestions about how to continue to drive down to the 4% or lower thank you is it too early to ask the finance committee um for our next meeting the um next week's meeting to have an update and then is that something that

031we can plan to have at each of them and maybe not at the work session or regular meeting I don't know what the plans are but can we have an update based on that from the finance committee uh sure um Dr Zerby if you want to add a slide or two that shows the same things we just discussed at the finance committee and a a brief update um related to those Miss kro asked if we can add I that's a great idea I appreciate it any other comments from the board Miss Steel thank you and uh thank you Mr wyers for sharing some of that update um and information um here right now um I don't um so I I do just have um one question I don't think it would be possible maybe within

032by next meeting but um as we're going through the process would it be possible to share the budgeting discussions the budgeting priorities as they align with and I don't know if like this is the comprehensive plan like prioritizing the school district priorities when it comes to education like these decisions have been made to prioritize these goals with literacy and supporting special education in these ways would that be able may obviously it wouldn't be this month this month but in the in the coming weeks as we work through the budgeting process of a some sort of presentation of the prioritization with District goals does that am I making sense with what I asking yeah I think what I think you're trying to share is that when we're making a budget is not necessarily a process of

033all reductions uh what what we're we're trying to do and we've explained that in a number of of conversations is that we need to make sure that we're providing uh the proper resources uh for our students and staff and school community in doing so there'll be reductions mix mixed with new additions so if there are new addition that that align with the comprehensive plan or with our strategic plan we'll note those in the presentations that we have you that one that last part real quick one more time my I followed so if we have if we have additions or subtractions in the budgetary process when we're when we're presenting them we will we will note whether or not they align with the Strategic plan or the comprehensive plan so for example if there's a matter

034of literacy because I know it's very heavily uh uh articulated in the comprehensive plan um if there is a a proposal uh as we spoke at the education committee meeting as well and briefly at the educa at the finance committee meeting about a literacy uh uh professional development when we show that as an ad in the budget process we can note that this is part of the um comprehensive plan thank you and I guess the other thing that I just wanted to ask and if this is more of a new business I apologize for going out of order or anything and maybe but with some of the changes that have been occurring recently just would it would be helpful maybe not within the budget but when we talk about the new about what needs to

035be done with the high school and that it I would just like to see some sort of like updated because I don't know if that if with some things going on with the economy if there are some shifts in expectations with costs and everything does that make sense I think it's I think I think it's important to know that uh you know Miss Stephy and I have a call with pfm our financial advisors tomorrow uh so we are working on trying to make sure that um wherever the Market's going we have a way to uh share that back with the board and and if that has an impact on our ability to realize uh the current path of of the new high school construction thank you thank you any questions to my left or comments

036see that yes Miss Miss CRA yeah I just um I know we've talked before about and and in the finance committee we've seen a line by line budget I just wanted to ask if there's going to be a presentation of that to the full board and maybe we could talk about a schedule for that to happen Dr zby I know we have set presentations in our you know throughout the the next couple months I just I agree there's February is just one time that we don't have it but I think we do have it already set Miss Ste if I'm correct of the different presentations that we have coming forward to the board there there's an actual uh schedule of of all the meeting dates and and and and we will will'll provide those to

037the board uh you know in this Friday's memo I think we were intending to do that this past Friday and I don't think I included it so it'll be in this Friday's memo and and just to be clear like if I understand correctly Miss Stephy you you're working on that line by line that would would be sort of the level of detail that the commenter had com had requested and that will be available correct so it you know maybe in March we would be able to see that yep okay thank you yes Miss Clary real quick I wanted to make a comment back to miss Ste um to your request around the updated budget I just wanted to say that I did ask Dr Zerby to at some point present to the board before we

038start talking about what we're going to do with the high school in March because I don't think I'm I I I told him that I would not be able to reach a decision without having some updated Financial presentation similar to what we got um at when we voted when we voted to move forward with the design phase so I just wanted you to know that Mr Winters did you want any additional comment yeah know I was just going to highlight some of the the comments uh that some of the subjects that were brought up that are described in the minutes um so there was discussion about the special education cost how they're tracking there was uh discussion about um The increased onetoone services that need to be added for nursing there was discussion about the

039where we are in local revenues and interest income in this this year uh the there was discussion on where we are with the health healthc care audited results and what that means for potential a a slight increase that's being put into our new rate with bucksmont Consortium we talked about where we were the the master master plan of financials we talked about how substitute uh cost was tracking and what that might mean for next year as well as Charter Charter School expenditures uh legal expenditures so then when we went to the discussion topics we did discuss uh something we had discussed a few months ago about the senior tax rebate and how that compared around and what type of impact that would have to the budget if we changed anything related to that we had

040an update related to the ICU budget uh at least the member services portion which is the shared portion of $2,900 and how that slightly impacts the budget we talked about the that we uh I'm sorry the governor's proposal and how uh Miss Stephy put that in and made some adjustments related to the revenue and that added Revenue to the preliminary the current draft of the budget I probably should call it we also talked about the increase in subsidy for special education that the the governor has proposed we did talk about re real estate assessments being down from July uh we did talk about the the second look of the health care and the choice uh the possibility of the SEC a second healthc care being lower or higher in the third uh look which comes

041in I think early April uh Dr Zerby mentioned that Dr gravan will be providing a monthly update related to special education and the programs and the costing moving forward um we also talked about a new historical review uh report that would have more um years and also a comparison and asked Miss Stephie to do a forecast for this calendar year uh we talked about the budget timeline and we talked about how the preliminary budget would only be five point would still be 5.1 at this voting meeting so I would say 80% of the meeting was discussing the budget for 2526 thank you any other further comments seeing none can I have a motion to adjourn Mr Winters can I have a second Miss Austin meeting is adjourned we'll give it two minutes for solicitor to

042be to leave okay we're going to roll right into the work session okay we'll give it a two minute e for for all right good evening I will call the work session on February 18 2025 to order please rise for the pledge of allegiance aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God invisible with liberty and justice for all the public public is here by advised of the audio and video recording of this meeting for purposes of rebroadcasting all members are in attendance with two being virtual Miss Shonda and Mr mki next is recognition of guests and scheduled speakers Dr Zerby thank you madam president this evening we have three presentations we have Dr Regina that is going to give us the student

043achievement report Dr Regina well he's making his way to the podium we'll then have the comprehensive plan with Dr Walsh M rookie and then a special education a brief special education update from Dr graines members of the board you have the presentation uh that Dr reginia is going to uh present and we're trying to get it up on the screen behind [Music] us looks like we're there all right so all your Dr V probably help if probably hope if I had this thank you everyone uh good evening um I'm going to hold this microphone because it's in a kind of a strange place here on the podium so what we're going to be going over today is the achievement report for Education uh in the month of February as you may remember in the fall

044uh we did look at the achievement results as it compares to our three-year rolling average um internally this we're actually looking at comparables across the County uh across the north monco group across the state and across the nation and so we're going to get into some of that data here uh rather shortly just as a quick agenda update um we are going to go through some assessment updates that are coming and just to remind the board what those are and a lot of those are State updates specifically uh but we'll talk through those we're going to review some of the 2324 State mandated high stake assessments we're going to look at SATs and a AP scores um we did end up ruling out the ACT we had looked at that in the past but we

045have such a low percentage of students uh that our end count is so low that really our data at this point is kind of tough to be able to use is uh something that's worthwhile at least to determine growth and and decline over the three-year period we're going to look at our continued Focus areas and then we're also going to talk about some initiatives that we're looking at for next year and so moving into the assessment updat so first uh online testing uh you heard us talk about it before um by the spring of 2026 pte is mandating that all schools go to the required online testing um as you know we've been doing that over the last foure period um so this is something that we have been doing um we are interested obviously

046to see how schools adjust to this mandate we know that many of them are shifting to that this spring that haven't been to give them a year under their belt before the Mandate comes in to work at any kinks um but we are expecting some change uh potentially in some of our comparable results as we know this is a variable right we recognize that this does create a level of uncertainty and some ability for there to be plus or minus within a school district and so we're very interested to see how schools adapt to this as they move forward the second thing is the science pssas we're going to keep talking about it it's one of those things that keeps coming up certainly the Steels realignment which which is science technology engineering environmental literacy and

047sustainability and this is a brand new shift um probably one of the largest changes that we've seen in science since any of us have ever been in education um we're also going to see the assessment shift from fourth to fifth grade which is a major shift as well and they're going to be field testing this this spring in fifth and sixth grade doing that also with some items in the biology Keystone those will not be graded this year in the field test um but obviously will in sub quent years moving into the assessments for pssa and keystones and so before we get into the assessments uh we want to go over a little bit about what those assessments are as a reminder obviously the pssas are the Pennsylvania system of school assessments and it's broken

048down into three subject areas Ela or English language arts mathematics and science Ela and math are given to students thir through eth grade and science is only given now in fifth and in eighth the exams assess proficiency so any of the numbers that you see in the presentations are going to be describing what a proficient score or above is which is essentially passing on the assessment and all percentages in the pssa data slides represent proficient or Advanced scores so we're going to move right into third grade and so if you've seen the presentations in the past you'll say Chay there's a lot less data points that exist and that's because what had happened before is we had did not have enough data points after the pandemic to be able to show a three-year Trend this

049is the first time we can so we were able to remove some of those data points pre pandemic if anyone's interested in those we can obviously share them but it's not something um that we are going to continue to do uh post pandemic so we're looking at 2022 2023 and 2024 results um the first slide shows the tabular form of what we see and it's probably a little easier to see the graphical form on the next slide uh we do see an increase in our Ela results in the dark blue line on the graph the light blue line signifies what the state is doing and so the state trend is increasing in ela but not at the same rate that we are here as a district um some interesting statistics as we go through some

050of this specifically in our K to four groups um when we break down the north monco schools that's methacton North pen soton peave and Wiis aickin there's 31 elementary schools so you'll hear me referencing sometimes how we're doing amongst the group and in ela we have the number two and Number Four elementary schools in that 31 school cohort um and so that's obviously fantastic um you are going to continually hear me talk about math and how well we're doing in math as well um our math scores are are absolutely skyrocketing if you see the state average they are flatlined if not decreasing slightly are math is doing the exact opposite um it is increasing drastically um and when we start so we say okay well that's probably something we're seeing across the county um not

051exactly when we compare against the 31 schools in the north Mona region we have the number one school the number two School the number seven school and the number eight school all of our schools are in the top eight of the 31 schools in mathematics for third grade we're the number third ranked School uh grade level third grade math in the county only behind lower Maring and Upper Dublin who typically hold the number one and number two spots in everything um and we are right there behind them so this is great data for us um naturally there's a lot of changes we've made in mathematics we're very proud of it and we're very excited to be making those same types of changes to our literacy in ela in the future and we're expecting the same

052kind of results moving into fourth grade again the tabular format of this uh we'll start with but it's certainly much easier to look at the graphical representation UHA as similar to the state is somewhat flatlined at this area um again one of those things that naturally we're going to continually growing with and why the literacy work is so important again mathematics we're seeing a decline in fourth grade across the state but we're not seeing that decline in methacton um again we're continuing to rise in this area um and we actually have the number one Elementary School in North monco in fourth grade mathematics um as well so that's great statistics science we are seeing an increase slightly similar to what the state showing um and we have the number two School in science out of

053that group as well so great statistics for us moving into fifth grade um we know of that transition we've talked about this before we grad we notice the drop that we see in some of our data sets when we get to fifth grade um in our Ela uh we have flatlined in ela we're not seeing huge we're not seeing any increase or decrease but we are seeing that the state has decreased the in ela it seems to be a common Trend across the state with Ela which I think is why a lot of Shifting to the literacy work in many of our schools across the Commonwealth is taking place mathematics this is something we are investigating thoroughly in our programming why we saw the drop in mathematics in fifth grade this is the only grade

054level we saw the drop now we obviously saw a large increase last year so we're not sure if this happens to be a cohort spike it is something we're looking at um but it is something we're investigating it's interesting to us because it actually shows a very similar look to what the state did the state spiked last year quite a bit and then and flatlined a bit so um kind of common we did see a little bit more of a drop than we'd like to and something we're currently investigating in fifth grade as we move to our sixth grade results um we're noticing our Ela uh we are flatlined if not slightly increasing again the state level is showing a decline um from last year two years ago to last year's data set uh the

055state math scores in sixth grade are relatively flat and we are increasing again in mathematics which is really the common theme of a lot of this data moving into seventh grade our Ela showing really a parallel slope to the state with a slight decline and our math scores again increasing with the state level being somewhat flat and then ultimately going into 8th grade again uh a slight decline in ela for the state we're seeing a slight incline um but relatively flat and then our math scores are increasing almost at a similar rate to what the state's seen in the eighth grade level and then science almost a mirror image of one another um we often see this in the science data we seem to mirror a lot of what the state does in terms of

056slope uh we just happen to see a little bit larger uh greater scores than we see at the state level and so shifting our Focus to Keystone exams so as we know keystones are essentially the high school representation of what we see on pssas um they're different though right they're end of course exams which means that you have to take the course in order to be able to take the exam at the end Ela is somewhat straightforward this is 10 grade literature and so we're going to talk about when students typically take that here in a second uh our math is algebra 1 and science is biology the exams if a student isn't successful in the exams they can be taken in subsequent years a little different than the pssas and percentages in Keystone data

057we actually show that two different representations which is very important um as we explain them one are the scores that we actually saw last year the other is what we call Bank scores we're going to talk about Bank scores when we get to that slide but that's a little bit different Keystone exams are given in certain grade levels so grade 10 and grade 11 if we think of literature to start literature just about all of our students take literature at grade 10 um we do have retakes and maybe some new students that come into the district that need to take it at grade 11 um but almost by and large all of our students are taking this in grade 10 that changes a bit when we get to biology ology we do have some students

058that take that in 9th grade and some that take it in 11th but the majority of our students do take that in 10th grade as well algebra is a different story this is all over the place right and so we do have some students that taken in seventh grade most of our students take it in either e8th or nth grade and then we do have some that take it in 10th uh really leave an 11th grade for retakes and new students that come into the district first slide we're going to look at in terms of data the next slide is what does our um and I apologize I can see the editing error there that's a three-year Trend not four-year Trend uh the three-year trend for proficiency scores my apologies um what you're going to

059notice here is that we are seeing an increase from last year's data to this year's data um now that's going to be important to notice as you look at the next slide which is Bank scores um but what we're noticing obviously last year's data is that we saw a spike in a lot of our res results when it comes to the data set um really some of these things that we haven't seen since the pandemic um one of them being our eighth grade Algebra scores um we're back up to that 80% level that we were at prepandemic we haven't been there since that moment in time so it's great to see us back achieving that same level of success um and just think that 23.3% of our students achieved uh success on the algebra High

060School uh algebra one assessments is fantastic if you think just two years prior we were looking at about 5% to 6% uh success rates there so very excited about that and there's a number of things that we've done we've done a lot of focus group stuff we've done a lot of after school opportunities for students to achieve those results and I think a lot of those paid off from our staff and from our Administration the next slide is a tad more uh what I'll say it's confusing in its context because of how it's calculated and that's Bank scores Bank scores are last year's Juniors this year's seniors and really it's the cumulative success that they have on the assessments so what they're doing is saying okay after you've had taken these if you've taken the

061algebra assessment your ninth grade year your 10th grade year 11th grade year and you pass to your 11th grade year that goes as a successful score then in the bank scores and none of your failures count towards this and so this is right the total accumulation of success at that grade level why is it complicated it's complicated because in 2021 the scores didn't count and so students and you really notice this in algebra um the student scores are misrepresented because the students that would have taken it in a certain grade level are weren't reported in 2223 you notice that this in Algebra 1 you see it's the metha score is 35.9 this would have been our eighth grade students remember many of our students take it in eighth grade and they're typically those students that

062do very well in mathematics none of their scores were reported at that level which significantly impacted how we reported out what our percentage is 23 24 our seventh grade students weren't reported and so if you remember last year when I gave this presentation this will be the last year we talk about the bank scores for the current year that we're going to be reporting so next year 2425 no longer will the bank scores be affected by that misrep reporting but we're still going to be looking at 2223 and 23324 and explaining the bank scores that way and so that is something that shows up on this achievement data going to be moving into SATs standard achievement test and advanced placement AP testing and so standard excuse me standard achievement test um not a lot of

063changes here in this data um as as we've typically done um number of our participants uh we went up one from last year uh 599 was our average the year before it's 595 in erw which is English reading and writing our math scores was 597 is now at 600 um very negligible uh differences plus or minus there and then our total score being 1196 versus 1195 when we show the data you can notice there might be a slight increase or slight decrease again not a lot of movement in a lot of this data set and so the first representation shows our to total SATs as compared to the state and to the nation obviously the state is the black line and the dark gray line is the National scores moving to erw again we're the

064blue the state is black and the gray line is the nation this is the English results and then finally when we look at our math scores again not much of a change one way or another there's a slight incline there slight decline to the math at the state and National level but when you're talking about numbers like 500 and 600 with a variance of one um again somewhat negligible when we look at those results as we move into AP testing and some of the statistics we've talked about before the number of exams and number of participants that we have um total number of exams is 768 with 93% of our scores worth three or higher what does that mean so if you can remember our AP exam the best score you can get is a

065five a three is typically what a college credit could be awarded to a student if they go to college if they chose to take that as a college credit so the fact that 93% of our scores are three or higher is obviously a fantastic statistic that means 93% of those scores have the possibility of receiving a college credit should our students choose to do that 72% or four or fives right so if three is good enough for a college credit four is great five is amazing right five is saying you have the highest score that you can get on this assessment um and so some of our distinctions are AP scholar AP scholar with honor and AP scholar with a distinction um really the number of students that are achieving those high levels and the

066number of exams that they take uh so awarded to students who receive a three or higher on three or more AP exams our scholar a 3.25 with four or more is with honor and then a 3.5 for five or more which is amazing 81 of our students with an average of 4.33 if we start to get into some of the statistic specific to our cumulative scores um we're going to shift to the graphical representation because it's a little easier to follow when we look at the bar graph on slide 31 um this is the first time that I can remember in recent history that we have scored above the 90% range um that and that's absolutely fantastic I'm sure if we we dig back um it may have happened before uh with Tara being here

067she would be able to tell me probably um but it's probably been a while out for us uh that I can remember that typically it's around the 88 to 89% that we have seen um and so to see something above 93% is exceptional when we start to go into some of the additional additional statistics um we're going to look at something uh in comparison to how we did the year before specifically the 11 courses that we had a 90% or more of the students scoring a three or higher now we do this with an Inc count of 10 we do have some AP exams that we showed 100% on but there might only be two or three students in the class and obviously that's not statistically significant so we didn't share that so anything that

068has 10 or more students taking the exam we we're sharing that with the board two years ago we had 11 courses that had 90% of the students or more with a three or higher uh last year we had 13 right and so we listed those courses below but that's obviously exceptional something that we certainly applaud our students and staff for accomplishing if we get a little bit deeper into for those that had 100% of students three or higher we had three courses two years ago we had seven last year right we wrap wrap our heads around that statistic every single student that took that AP exam got a three or higher that's incredible right and so if you look at your courses there the 2D art and design biology Cal AB chemistry computer science principles

069physics statistics every child scored a three or higher in that course amazing we start to go a little bit deeper into some of this data right we had nine courses two years ago that had a four or higher average last year 11 courses average a four or higher I if you wrap your heads around Cal BC right it's 4.8 think of so if we think about that just think of the the average of that 4.8 that means if five students taken it four of them got a five one got a four five is the highest you can get that's that's the type of product that's coming out of our calculus courses and a lot of our AP courses the students are able to take on those opportunities and again just fantastic statistics we're very very

070proud of a lot of our data that we have and especially in our AP courses something else I shared with education committee when you look at the statistics specific around a lot of our high stakes testing I think we get caught up and okay well how do we compare against our like Partners what about the districts that we may have similar demographics too what do we look like APS this is the best of the best in every school these are your best students and how they produce and so when you're comparing the best of the best of how you're scoring an AP to your neighboring schools or to any school in the state or in the nation these are the types of results you see and you look at it in your next bar graph

071we're the green the state comparisons are in Black the national comparisons are in Gray these are what your students and your staff are Achi saing on an annual basis and this is a lot to be proud of this is the first one is your comparison for St students that score three or higher and then the average score in exams is the next slide for a bar graph again you can see how the green Towers above all the other colors on the slide our continued Focus areas for next year we're going to Contin or this year we're continue to focus on planning I know it's been a Hot Topic we've talked about it a lot but it's going really well we're getting a lot of great feedback we've had a lot of sessions along with staff

072to be able to learn take a lot of learnings from this year and providing people a lot of explanation about what the future looks like in planning um are there still bumps and obstacles that we approach of course there is it's something new but each day it gets a lot easier and I think people are working through it and really seeing the results um that they're looking for with that we're still talking about assessment variables reducing them or mitigating them so that way we're putting students in the best opportunity to be successful one thing that that we' already started to look at is a lot of the stuff when it comes to the way questions are worded on the assessment we talked a lot about that last year we pushed that up at the high

073school level they're doing a lot of that this year when it comes to Keystone testing how are they worded how can I prepare right they want to make sure that the stuff that you see on the assessment looks very similar to the way you've been practicing it all year long and we're continuing to do that instructional coaching it's going extremely well doing a lot of work specific with how do I work into those planning questions with staff how do I give them feedback the touch points have been incredible uh you know they keep a log sheet of how many times they've been in there hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of touch points that we have with staff and able to get into those classrooms and be able to assist and support staff has been great

074right we wanted to do that in a very non-evaluative way and it's working tremendously our walkthrough and observation work is going really well that's as much PD for administrators to be getting good honest feedback to staff sometimes it's tough right you go in there everything looks good so we do a lot of paired walkthroughs to give an opportunity for two administrators to be able to go in maybe one sees something the other one does that's new for us right there we were really worried that staff would be uncomfortable with multiple people walking in it's something that's common place now right people are very comfortable with and it's going very well and addressing the literacy Gap right this is something that we've talked about quite a bit and it is something that we're starting to work

075on this year specific to addressing the gap but it's very important we continue that work into the future when it comes to planning and that's what we're going to get into next is the 2526 initiatives that are coming up for 25 26 initiatives the literacy Improvement initiative with schools cubes and keys to literacy um we're hopeful that we're able to move forward with this programming we want to look at what that's going to look like internally as well as what it looks like with our external partners and we're going to be sharing that with the board here in the upcoming uh presentation we're hoping for potentially march to be able to share that with the board common quality assessments that's our work for next year you might remember this year was going to be planning

076next year was assessment writing and so it's not just about having common assessments which doesn't happen across the board in the K to4 World it really does but when you get to high school it's possible that maybe your geometry teacher in one room and your geometry teacher in another room might not give the same assessment and and sometimes as if it's a quality assessment it's good for their practice as well as good for students when it comes to equity on what they're learning and assessed in each classroom to be assure that consistency and so that's something we're going to start working on next year quite extensively the implementation of the instructional coaching model so going to that next level with the program um I know there's some a lot of discussion that we're having about

077that and there's ways to be able to implement it differently uh to look at different strategies but certainly the work has been worked very well and something that we would love to continue and finally uh the new steals character strong and PBIS implementation it sounds like a lot right and if I put that list out there for any one person it is a lot the reality is most of these things happen in different pockets it's not all the same person absorbing them I will admit our administrators typically absorb all of them that is true um but a lot of our teaching staff counseling staff um science teachers versus ELA teachers versus Math teachers wouldn't necessarily see all of them and so it might look a lot listed but it isn't necessarily a lot for one

078person and that is all that I have for the board this evening are there any questions thank you Dr Regina uh before we take questions from members of the board I think it's important to to recognize that uh from your leadership leadership of Dr Walsh and the curriculum office to our principles and most importantly to our teachers directly working with our classrooms as you know a lot of the efforts that we put forward these last few years are starting to pay off here so I want to thank those of you that are here and certainly all of our our staff uh with with all the hard work and continued effort uh to make improvements so thank you so questions for members of the board Mr wyers yeah I didn't ask to set the education because

079but it did pop in my head this last slide around common quality assessments how does that can you speak towards you know comparison as being a p best practice um is it statistically proven to provide better results of the higher performing schools or is it is it just a gut thing that we're trying to do no it it it certainly is a best practice for high performing schools so so depending on what level you're at typically a lot of the assessments are generated by the companies in which we might purchase a program from for instance I ready or wonders may be creating their own assessments at lower grade levels but at high school it traditionally a lot of our teachers will create their own assessments and I don't know about the teachers in our building

080but I can tell you my teach teaching courses I never took a teaching course on writing quality assessments right and so that falls upon us as a district to be training our staff on what is a quality assessment and how is it written from the options of is it multiple choices and open-ended to how you write it and what's the context of how you're writing it you might be looking at your textbook at the way homework problems are given and trying to draft a test question based on it um and that might that's not a good that's not a great practice the application of knowledge of what you learned in the classroom and applying that on the assessment is what's important and so how do you how do you do that a lot of our

081staff members were never trained at at the college level on how to do that and so and they might have come into the system still not knowing how to do it and so yes it is something that is a best practice and something that we um very uh it's very important to us to move forward we knew we would have to do it in this order we knew you you don't want to get to assessments before you got to the planning right let's talk about how you're properly planning now let's do the assessments now I see the results of the assessment that drive my planning right and so now okay my students struggle in this assessment what I go what do I do to go back to my planning now to reteach this topic in

082order for them to capture uh the quality of of what I was trying to teach and so yes it's very calculated on how we've done this and we're super excited about you know implementing those best practices welcome any other questions to my right Miss graph yeah this is a lot so thank you you're welcome um I just I I had a couple questions to start with about the AP program sure these numbers look fantastic so do you know how many AP classes we actually have at the high [Music] [Applause] school I I can get that for you I could guess but I I used to have it in my head I don't know if it's if I'm looking to my left and I don't want to put anybody on the on the spot I think

083it's I not is it more than 20 well yes is it more than 25 I don't think so I think it's we offer we offer most of the AP classes but but I think two or that doesn't actually that are available I know but I don't know to tell so my point is if we have 22 or 23 out of our 22 or 23 50% of them are getting a four or higher so my question is what are we doing to take these results and take them to the other 11 courses to help those teachers students programming to get the 22 classes every class to a four higher every class to 90% of them are getting threes and I'm just asking the question because I think clearly we know how to teach to an AP

084test to get our kids to to do exceptionally well on the AP exam but we're not able to do it across the board for every AP class so my question is and I would certainly challenge the administration to start thinking about how do we broaden our experience to to bring in those other AP curriculums as well and maybe get double the number of students to be doing well because there are students that may only take two a two AP courses and they're not in this list right and so I just we appreciate that challenge um so so one thing I will say to uh Miss graph that we talked about in education committee was we also recognize um and so when we look at the data right we we certainly take all the positives at

085it but we also look at all of our opportunities for growth right and so when we look at that data it's tough when you look at the AP data that's great that you'd share that because I think that is an area of growth the other one for us was the number of participants we want to increase that number and so that is something that we are focused on even in this current scheduling process is how can we open up opportunities more students to experience our AP cours work now we know that by opening that up to more students there's a potential that we won't see 93 that's okay we what we want to do is be able to provide more opportunity to allow students to achieve to that level because we know that they can

086and so that's something that we're committed to doing as well right so that was going to be my follow-up question was you know how many students out do we have in the AP curriculum I mean we talk about the number of exams and we talk about the number of students it looks to me from 2022 to 2024 our numbers are decreasing there are fewer students taking AP courses or taking AP exams um and I just wonder if if we understand why that's happening is it because they don't feel like they can do well enough on the exam is it because they don't see the benefit for college readiness like I don't know what it is but I think it'd be curious to figure out what's driving that decrease in participation because clearly we have we

087have the courses that could be attractive to students correct it's it's approximately 30 to 40% and of of participants and what we what we're focusing on is getting that above 50 and so that's our goal it's something we've talked about internally so how do we do that um some of them are very difficult right when we think about calc BC that's a very specific path that actually starts in eth grade right if you think about it but some of them aren't some of them they're There's an opportunity maybe to take courses the first time it could be a social studies course it could be an Ela course that don't have the sequence of courses that are required to get to that spot is at an opening for for us so that's something that we're looking

088at yes yeah I think those are all awesome opportunities for us and I think it would be great if we could see you know like that our the number of participating students increasing that would also generate opportunities for us to consider if we want to add AP courses I mean you can always add additional things that's correct um and then I just wanted to clarify a couple of things back on the Keystone exams so when I go to slide 22 and I look at the algebra 1 results from the high school for 23 24 does that data that 23.3% that's telling me only 23.3% of our our metha and high school algebra one students are proficient that that scored proficient on that exam that year that is correct so okay isn't it interesting that at

089our Cola we have better scores than we do at the high school not interesting at all no it's so tell me more about that so so speaking candidly um students that typically perform better in mathematics are taking this exam much earlier so they're taking it at our Cola they're taking in our and so students that may have historically struggled in mathematics are taking it later and so what you're seeing is the students so so the the high school now cannot take the eighth grade scores right the students that have traditionally done better they may have to they're taking the scores of students that may be struggling in mathematics and so it's we expect to see very high percentages at our Cola right and and we typically see lower percentage and that's across the Commonwealth it's

090a very common statistic um and that's why that's why you're seeing that when you get to the bank scores they all come in together right so then it sort of gets rid of that bias that is correct exactly okay that makes sense to me and then my other question is on slide 17 where we talk about the eighth grade um pssa scores for mathematics we have in 2024 it's a 40.2 so are we essentially saying that in in eth grade in 2024 only 40.2% of our students were um proficient that's correct that is correct okay so the interesting thing to me was when I went back and said okay so the students that were in 8th grade in 24 were in seventh grade in 23 and sixth grade in 2022 and if you pull that

091data in the numbers are decreasing in grade six those same that same cohort was at 48.8 in grade seven they were at 46.8 and then in grade eight they're down at 40% so they're actually showing a decrease in their math in accordance with their grade level it's a great great observation and a very common Trend across the Commonwealth the assessment increases in its rigor greatly up into eth grade it an even more interesting statistic that we've looked at is students that have been advanced in the Keystone we have some that score basic in the pssa achievement and so there's actually something that we're working on right now with our algebra teachers so think about this an eighth grade Algebra student is learning algebra but there's things on the pssa assessment that are Beyond algebra it's

092stuff that's in the general math curriculum that they're not necessarily receiving in the algebra curriculum so we've shifted through our planning initiative we've been shifting to make sure they're getting that algebra information that's going to be on the pssa Keystone to make sure that that they are prepared for the the both the Keystone and for the pssa assessment and so yes it's if you look at it all the way down almost when you start in third grade the the trend of the scores drops every year thereafter and there's a lot of beliefs on why that is but quite frankly as a as a math teacher myself I can tell you the rigor of that assessment as it gets to eighth grade the eighth grade assessment is actually quite challenging um and I would rather take

093the Keystone assessment than the eighth grade pssa assessment it's actually I think an easier an easier test but um yes that is something that that we've noticed as well and is that is that specific to methacton or would our peers also see a everybody sees the trend yeah yep and so it happens um really it happens dur at the transition point and that's when we notice it the first time the moment that our students transition from the traditional K2 whatever they have if it's K to four K to 5 K to six the moment they transition that Trend seems to drop um but historically we've seen it in fifth grade many many years ago I don't want age myself but the pssa used to be given third fifth and eth and 11th right and so

094when the pssas were that way those were really the touch points that we started to see major rigor changes and I believe those those same touch points exist even though it's fluid now it goes straight through third fifth eth you're seeing the rigor ramp up at each one and so I we see drastic drops at each one of those points okay thank you you're welcome any questions join left Miss Alon thank you you're welcome um I I have a question also about slide 22 the um the algebra one at the high school not can you just give me a sense because I I I mean I'm assuming a much smaller percentage that represents a much smaller percentage of our students like how how much correct do you have it's a great question I I would

095say I don't want to say it's quite 50% um but it's pretty close and that can drift we we typically see about 40% of our test takers in eth grade and I wouldn't say we have exactly 10% seventh graders involved um but but it's relatively close to 50 to 55% at the high school level okay so about half of our class about half okay um and then when you're talking about the focus area of planning yeah what kinds of things can you just describe that a little bit more please sure it we really um so the one thing that we wanted to remove is the the stigma I need to have this specific template document and it's got to be perfect and it's got to have every the idea we wanted to focus on the

096act of planning and so the importance of planning maybe collaboratively or or what am I planning for am I utilizing information that I have in my class to assist in my planning for the future and that's been a that's been a growing uh we've been growing in that area right and that's something that I think principles hold their own planning sessions I know our curricul department gets involved in those same planning sessions our coaches are involved in planning sessions and we have we told our staff from the beginning which I think was extremely helpful as long as we're looking to grow no one's going to be told you're doing it wrong how dare you you're failing in your evaluation no no if we're we have a growth mindset to this we're all learning together and

097as long as we're doing that everyone's going to be fine but we just want to keep that focus on getting better and improving and so that's done really well we we did have a couple staff members come to me directly uh want to say it was probably about November and say Jay we have a lot of things we want to talk about with planning so I know our curriculum Department met we actually had each teacher at each building at each grade level one representative come and meet with with Miss Strauss and share with her what their concerns were so she was able to take all that down then share back out to the buildings how we're going to adjust to meet so some of those uh recommendations and you know we got messages back saying

098thank you for listening this has been very helpful it's going much better at this point so let not to say everything's perfect um but but we are certainly growing as a district and and we know this is we shared this we didn't want to fall back on this is part of the evaluation right domain one 25 we didn't want to do that it's part of policy we didn't do that either it's just this is just best practice it's good for instruction we're going to do it together and I think that's gone a long way and is that at all grade levels all grade levels yes it looks different right and so in the K to four if a fourth grade teacher wants to collaborate with their team and every fourth grade across the district they

099all have the same planning time across the district that's a real advantage to a high school teacher who and you teach algebra and the other algebra teacher may not have off the same period so so we're Keystone specific Dr uker is working on the schedule so that at least our Keystone courses have the same planning time if we can do it so we're trying to find some of those opportunities we leverage our coaches a lot though at the grade levels to help with that right so they might not be able to but our coaches can meet with them and be able to assist with that and maybe talk what the others are doing so and at the high school is that department heads well the co the instructional coach isn't but department heads could help

100with that as well y um and then I just um to miss graph's point about the I I believe the number of students in 20202 was a bubble year there was an unusually large number of students in that grade so that might ALS be a factor of why the numbers are different with the participation thank you thank you Miss Alon Miss steal thank you for this you're welcome um I did just wanted to to comment about the initiatives first um and you you you touched on it but I did just want to share that the 2526 initiatives do look like a lot and in fact I commented in Ed committee that's that's a lot um but they are all inher inherently connected Ed um including the schools cubed and literacy all the way up even

101you know say because literacy is not just phonics it's very very complex and understanding literacy can actually help inform the creation of Assessments in order to understand if the assessment is giving you the information you you need in order to plan forward or if perhaps there's something in the assessment that's causing a barrier and then literacy um I'm sorry instructional coaches can always help dig into it and so all of these kind of work together so I did just want to connect that and I see that which is wonderful um I do have quick questions the first one you shared and it was an interesting say I know that there's uh you had mentioned that there's that attempt to um increase the number of students in AP classes and I do have a question because

102then you mentioned just now around 40% [Music] students um at our Cola are in math at 8th grade um algebra take the algebra Keystone and then maybe 10ish in seventh do you see those students go on to AP math courses or do they drop down or not drop down but do they continue on does that inform AP in the stem Fields it it does so um I I wouldn't say that I would have the statistics to track the percentage drop off I was just um but but what we what we would say is traditionally yes those are the students if you're taking out per one and eth grade are the students that that are on the have the progress of getting to Cal BC that isn't to say if you are not in that there

103isn't an opportunity to double up in high school to get on that track you can do that right it just would require you to double up and so we see that less common than we would see the eighth grade algebra one or even the seventh grade algebra one student getting to that BC area okay I was just I was wondering if they were continuing that's thank you um and these are quick questions um do the eighth grade students take the keystones first or the pssa first if they're in algebra they take the pssas first okay I was just wondering that and then um will we get the field so the field testing for the science this year will I know that's not graded will we get the data to see how we did I'm gonna

104lean on my DC right now which is our dist District assessment coordinator we will get limited data but we will get data about how to do okay awesome thanks thank you T any other questions to I left M Purdue um I know we talked about this and I do appreciate the work um done to put this presentation together I think we are starting to see and I would say probably a few days after our Ed committee meeting um the education recovery scorecard came out um in reference to how I think it was was Nationwide how we're doing in reference to post pandemic recovery right and I at least I was happy to see that we're doing all the right things here in Miss Acton right and knowing that that scorecard came out after we had

105our at committee but knowing that things that we Ted the administration with and what what was on our 2024 2025 plan and also what's in our 2025 26 plans so I feel like a lot of things we're doing um we're doing right and it called out a lot of things and I I want to say you have many of those components here in reference to it when we talk about literacy I think is critical they called out that also in reference to I know planning is something that we're doing here in M acting but it's something I think will really help us and I I know when that was brought up there was a lot of uncertainty I would say and I think we hearing more maybe teachers are embracing it because they're getting into

106the rhythm of it and they're adapting to how to do it and I I would say to continue to support our teachers as they're going through it um because it I think it's critical just to ensure they have the right tools right I don't I don't want to hear like teachers are stressing about it or feel like they're spending more of their time with um planning than what they need to do as far as instruction itself but when I I went through it I took a few things down that I thought was important just to highlight just to show how we are on the right track as far as what we need to um what we need to do and the things that we're doing already and um I think they said we needed to

107have some long-term structural goals right I think we know from the funding that we receive from federal grants to help with the pandemic recovery it really helped us and they show that that really helped to ensure that we didn't get further in the hole as far as the gap or create a bigger Gap so it help us but we know that those funds that run out there's a great likelihood we may not get those also but it's something that and unfortunately we talked about the budget today but it's something that naturally we may have to take on to supporting some of those efforts at the district so it's like at the local level but I think a lot of it saying that really advocating for funding to support some of those programs but we have

108to make sure that we are looking at those programs that we put in to make sure are they working for us what work what didn't work right because if we're in a position to get funding or we have money or we're in a position to put in any initiatives we really should be supporting the ones that we felt really yed the best support for our students right one of the things I think you talk about is the Intensive tutoring and I think you actually um supported some of our students with some of that that was brought up as far as something that's helping summer program um we did the help desk I think that's something that is helpful but looking back to see what was really helpful like out of all those programs if we

109had opportunity to get funding again what are some of those programs that will continue or we want to bring back that we felt like was really helping our students one of the things that um also said was really um and I think it's a double down on our academic efforts and I think we are doing a lot of that also but there was a special call out to atenism we've never really talked about it and I don't know if you're aware if that's something that we're seeing because they're saying that that's something also even with our recovery efforts it can really it it really won't help us so I'm wondering do we have an issue based on your knowledge here with absenteeism and I know it's also different because naturally now when students get sick

110they're probably taking more days off it's if it's co related or not but is there something that we are seeing also and is there something CU it talked about how it should be addressed and not really leave it on that school administrator shoulders but Community efforts and anything else so I'm wondering if that's something that we also seen because we didn't call it out in our plans and maybe we don't need to but I'm wondering because I was listening to One of another school district was talking about it and I think we do a good job here because if my kid just happen to be not in a class or something I'll get a phone call about it I'll get an email where I was hearing some District say okay now we have to implement

111a phone call email system to track you know and I'm like we're already doing that here right I get a call right away sometimes it's a little premature because they're on the bus and they're just happen to be late but but we're doing some of that but is that something that we're seeing well we have great systems in place first of all you're you're absolutely right I think in in order to remedy some of the attendance issues that we may see the systems are in place here and I think have been for for a while to be able to address that and and really a lot of remarkable things have come out of that right some sometimes bad situations that we were able to help families with because of the systems we have in place

112so we're very proud of that um in our report card and I'm going to lean on the cric department here for a second I know in our report card attendance data is one of the data points that they utilize for our building level scores I believe correct and so I don't know if any of those were negatively impacting our build building level scores I don't believe so no we'll have to talk about oh fantastic that'll be the compreh answer report so yeah I don't believe any of them negatively impacted us okay so that's good because I was like oh we never really talked about it but I figured if it was an issue that we were seeing it would be brought up but I wanted to um raise that point but I I also know

113they talked about addressing social emotional learning and I think we are doing that we have the PBIS and a lot of things that we put it in so I feel reading that report and I will recommend to the board maybe take a look through it just to see if there's something else that comes out to to us that we think we could be doing here I feel like we are on the right track right many districts are still trying to get their hands around how do we get back to where our levels where pre pandemic and how do we really support our students but I think it's something that we're doing some of the right things and as we um work on doing that but it's really just sometimes we need to step back and

114see what's working what's not working and so I do appreciate this but I do I do hope that we are on the right track and I think we'll hear some of that with our comprehensive plan and even some of the literacy um projects that we plan to take so thank you thank you Miss Purdue and I have to say that we don't know what they're going to write before they write it and so naturally that but I mean I definitely have to applaud our Administration on really creating the right path for us to get to that level and and when I read things like that to know that our administrations are thinking about that along with our teacher leaders it's reassuring to know um we just got a great group of you know that already

115right we have a great group of leaders here we have a great group of teachers and so we're very very blessed and and our staff all around we're we're blessed here so thank you can I just add one last thing one thing that called out was ensuring that parents were informed as far as where their students are I think we do that already but just making sure maybe parents are not really sure if their kids have fallen behind right because we're saying based on even the improvements we're seeing students are maybe a half a grade under some students so but really keeping parents informed and maybe it's something that they take on if there's something they need or but keeping them informed about the services that we offer also thank you it's interesting that miss

116Ricky uh Dr Walsh and Mr eworth at our call we were just recently talking about this conversation um not only informing but how can we be proactive with some of that information with staff with parents so thank you all I want to say is first is thank you very much I think the administration uh I love seeing the scores I you know I'm very excited because we put in that math piloting and you guys really went focused hard I I hope that you're telling the teachers about this the principles and the students too because and even the people that piloted that math program that you guys put together I mean I saw them come to the Education meeting and they discuss what they were doing and the results they felt so please go back to

117all of those that started the piloting implemented and all the teachers that these are great numbers to be number one three five like being the top within our own you know area is pretty fantastic so thank you for all that hard work look forward to literacy and doing that same hard work and focus that you're doing too I I feel very comfortable that you will achieve that that goal so thank you one thing I'll say with the SATs the numbers going down is because colleges were saying you could you know apply or not use them or not next year it's not the case so I really think if there's any initiative resource to support for those students that now have to go into a reality of SATs matter now um I think that's pretty important

118to do because they're going to be required a you know Acts or SATs either way would be great and then the only thing too is I'm curious some districts not that I want to do it I know what our budget butay for the cost of AP you know and and there's this opportunity for all students to have that opportunity to take it so conversations with the school counselors that those that maybe can't afford It's a 65 I think $75 fee maybe many want to take two three those kids that have opportunity because then it is a college course credit let's just get a pulse and see what what that Financial concerns may be appreciate that and it and also it fits within the eitc framework as well so something that to explore yeah thank you

119all right thank you for all this I appreciate it you're welcome welcome thank you sorry oh miss sorry I'm so sorry I at the end um just a I have a data request actually if it's something for for the future if you have the data do you have you the comparisons for pssa and keystones were US versus the state but you did talk about the local the Montgomery County cohort schools and where we're ranked one and where we're ranked two which is fabulous but could you provide are you able to provide these charts not necessarily on the state but on Montgomery County I mean to me I would expect us to do better than M than the state so I would love to know how we're doing locally um if that's possible sure so we're

120eighth in the county in ela third grade we're third in math we're seventh in fourth grade ELA and we're seventh in math uh for fourth grade I'll have to get back to you on the fifth through eth results but I memorize those at least yeah it was just a it was just a I was just hoping I could see the results that way we can get that thank you very much you're welcome any final questions excellent thank you Dr Regina next on the agenda under guests and scheduled speakers this evening we have Dr Walsh and miss Ricky to present the methacton comprehensive plan Dr Walsh okay good even thank you Dr Zerby and good evening board of directors so tonight we are updating we're giving you our uh first look at Theon comprehensive plan for

121the next three years this is something that's that is required by pde uh Pennsylvania Department of Education once every three years so it's hard to believe it's up already so um without further Ado I'll just go through the different slides and uh miss Ricky will join me here in just a few moments so again just the resetting everyone the purpose of our um comprehensive plan if you will is for continuous Improvement of leadership teaching and learning it's that cycle of improvement that is grounded in evidence-based approaches and it gives us an opportunity to look at where we are where we need to go and how we're going to get there so that's really the the in a nutshell the purpose of our um comprehensive plan for the next three years again I'm not going to

122read every word to you but some of the things that jump out at our mission and vision is exemplary student focus and Community centered you'll we'll talk to you about this process that gathered input from various stakeholders including our community and our vision is to empower all Learners to develop their talents and encourage personal growth and success so again when we look at how we're going to inspire our leadership leadership just isn't with Administration it's within our teacher group and how we can support that for all students to achieve so here's the process for the comprehensive plan which is from various stakeholders um we had the administration um the instructional side of the administration team we look for conditions for leadership um for teaching and learning and we use data points to create student performance

123measures okay so that was the administration team our teachers were also part of this if they're part of the Act 48 which is our professional development committee um they identified strengths and needs we also had Community input um again that reviewed our full proposal plan we had parents and principes identified two parents from each of their buildings to be invited as part of this comprehensive plan and then obviously the school board which is all of you and More in particular we shared this at the most recent Ed committee a few weeks ago okay so some of our sources that we use to analyze our data where we currently are pte requires we review the following the PA Future Ready index that's that's public facing website um that shows our all our data attendance data pssa

124Keystone graduation graduation career Etc local assessments that we use we selected for our local assessments are dibles eight remember Dibbles stands for dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills and our I ready Diagnostic and lch Link it Benchmark so those are the three things that we used as we collected our data we did A needs assessment survey and then we looked at our overall conditions for leadership which includes teaching and learning some things that are are of a highlight that we should be proud of here at mathon and within our comprehensive plan is our career Readiness our students historically have done very well in completing their career artifacts that is included in our chapter 339 plan and environment and ecology historically our students do very well in our overall State assessments Dr Regina referred to

125that earlier in the presid presentation as we go to our new steel standards in Pennsylvania for the 25 26 school year we have high expectations that we continue on that pathway social studies we do very well on our act 35 uh required Civics exam that's administer all our high school students and we submit that to Pennsylvania Department of Education as well and then we have an articulated agreement with monco um for our dual enrollment courses so these are things that we're also including in our academic uh comprehensive plan now going to turn it over over to miss Ricky who will talk to you about what the components are and the process we're going to to get there thank you Dr Walsh good evening everyone so when we take a look at all of that information

126that Dr Walsh mentioned some of the things that we are utilizing as the basis of our plan start with our strengths so we found that attendance is one of our strengths um our high school is at about 88% for the future ready uh report card that's posted which is a lagging indicator so that's actually still from 2223 data that's the way the state rolls out that information so um we we expect that we continue to get higher than that but all of our other schools are generally in the 90s or above so that's that's excellent compared to the state we also noted in our data analysis that our students with 504s are outperforming our total population on our benchmarks so we're doing some investigating about what that exactly means but we are expecting that we'll

127find there are some things that doing for students with with 504s that we could be replicating for students across the board in order to kind of promote that success everywhere so those are some strengths that we use to to leverage the challenges that we know we need to address some of the challenges we're looking to address our scores are our third and fourth grade 2024 fall benchmarks are lower than they were in 2023 we've also noted though that across the state scores have fallen in that same Trend so that's something we're looking at for ourselves but also looking at in comparison our scores on our grade six and seven fall benchmarks in ela show that our students with disabilities or students that are identified as English Learners are scoring below proficient our students with IEPs

128are underperforming the total student group in both math and Ela our supports are not systematically implemented across all grade levels so when we're looking at our mtss process we want to make sure that we are equitably um sharing those services that are available with all students who need them and then of course we're looking at that adoption of the new steel standards for science so those are the areas we'll be working on utilizing those challenges um to support or use utilizing those strengths to support us we um identified three General categories for the um comprehensive plan and we've grouped them into structured literacy multi-tiered system of supports which is mtss and then our steals implementation those categories then fit into the state outcome categories that they designate so our first goal we're looking at structured

129literacy in that Ela outcome category we are looking that by the end of our comprehensive plan we are will'll have 95% of students in grades 3 through eight and 11 scoring proficient or Advanced on our state literacy assessments breaking that down over the next few years of how we'll get there we're looking in year one that we'll see that all student groups will show a gain of 10% over over the 2324 Baseline on our state literacy assessments Target year two we're looking at the general student population will show a gain of 10% over the Baseline year of 2526 State assessments and then again with that year three being that 95% achievement our second goal that mtss category with the state outcome category of allocating resources strategically and equitably we'll develop an mtss plan that is

130clearly communicated in implement it K to 12 we have a lot of the pieces in place in in different parts of our grade levels with K4 being the one that we've we've been working through the longest and our furthest along but we know we also want to make sure that there's communication about those Services um to parents and also ensuring that teachers understand how students are able to move through U getting those additional services that they may need so Target year one we're looking at implementing the literacy interventions from K to 12 following a clearly identified structure and criteria that reflect appropriate scaffolding of support as students move through their grade progression year two identifying and implementing a common assessment practice by course and a system to analyze that data and inform decisions year round

131and then again year three that mtss clearly communicated and structured plan and our third goal is that steals implementation falling in that stem outcome category for the state and again we're looking at 95% of students performing proficient or Advanced on the state science assessments by the end of our comprehensive plan year one we're looking to see that the total the all student group performs 10% better over the Baseline field test data that we'll receive this year year two we're looking at our all student Group performing 10% better over the 2526 results on the state Science assessment and again that 95% achievement at the end how we're going to do it so we're going to get started implementing specific interventions for students Based on data with clear targets for Success our building principles are leading this

132effort with obviously the support from the curriculum supervisor special education supervisors with intervention materials that we've brought on in that professional learning we expect that all teachers of grades four through nine will be able to identify literacy needs and students Based on data and able to identify the appropriate intervention for that student clearly we're ALS Al looking at our younger students and our older students but we recognize that that middle level is the area where we can have the greatest impact we'll be monitoring through quarterly um teachers participating in data analysis sessions and also um working with their principles to identify specific grade level goals classroom goals and then implementing interventions our next step providing explicit literacy instruction in grades K through 12 in the Universal tier so our core instruction ensuring that we are

133doing explicit literacy instruction in all of our core subjects again this is being led through our director of curriculum with the support of the curriculum department and special education department and our building principles we are expecting that classroom lessons will provide opportunities for all students to receive explicit instruction and practice related opportunities for practice we'll be looking through giving feedback through walkthroughs through our uh observations and then working with our coaches and then of course professional development sessions Target it to these specific areas of need and then we're looking to ensure that we teach academic vocabulary intensively across several days and using a variety of instructional strategies this is a specific recommendation from the state um but it's also one that in our work with schools cubed and in the work we've done with our

134structured literacy that we've identified as an area that can really um improve achievement for our students in all subject areas but also can help to improve instruction when we focus on these with teachers in all subject areas as well so we'll be looking to see that uh implemented in their lessons and then also again principles will be providing feedback through observations specifically targeted on this specific um instructional practice and then also work with instructional coaches on developing practices in this area as well okay so that's that's the the uh overall summary of the presentation the entire presentation will be linked in um this PowerPoint presentation which will be posted in addition we also have uh just some updates to our gifted plan our induction plan and our professional development plan so the professional development plan

135includes the information about how we'll give PD to teachers related to our specific goals induction introduces the um two-year plan that is now required by the state so our teachers who went through induction starting this year will have a second year and that's outlined there as well um and then the gifted plan we've made just some slight revisions but we know that after their our gifted audit we'll likely be um making some additional additions which will then be presented and need to be um po posted for 28 day public review and then approved again so once we get that information but at this time it's a requirement of um submission of the comprehensive plan that all all those plans are also put out for public review and then approved for submission at the end of

136March thank you miss Ricky thank you Dr Walsh are there questions from members of the board to my left Miss Ste I don't necessarily have a question I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you for sharing this and how excited I am for a goal of 95% of students students um to be um proficient or Advanced on state literacy exams because that it it is known and accepted um with science reading research that 95% of human beings can learn to read and write proficiently and I think it is a really great goal and I'm excited to see MTH Acton reach it I'm excited to see progress data as we get there and um I've just wanted to say thank you any of questions or comments uh Miss uh Purdue I just have

137one um when we look at the challenges I know that you have students with IEPs um underperforming um but in the plan itself when you click on in reference to all the links that you're going to provide for updates the special education plan is not on there can you clarify that the special education plan is actually on a different cycle than the comprehensive plan so we approved our special education plan last spring and um that is now in its first year of its three-year cycle so that is still available publicly on our website but it was approved last spring so is there so and my question is how do you tie that back right when you have noted one of the challenges on there and I know it's not like one of your next steps

138or the three how do you tie that back because I'm guessing you're updating the other plans based on our priorities right if I'm getting that right so the other plans are also required to be updated at the time you submit the comprehensive plan and even though the special education plan is also connected to the comprehensive plan they just happen to have a different cycle but one of the things we or a couple of the things we noted for Deeds of improvement in the special education plan in the spring are tied directly to some of the things that we talked about here so making sure we're giving those right supports looking at our literacy practices um making sure that we're addressing specifically those subgroups of students who need that extra and what we can do for

139them okay that's fine that's perfect that's what I was hoping we are doing and I think when we looked at this and we and I do appreciate the information provided at committee and um you sharing this today with the board it seemed like we can always be more consistent in our approach right so I do and I don't know if it's not really called out here but what I'm hoping is while we're doing while we have this plan in we can also focus on being consistent throughout right because I think that's key and that will help us when we think about really having a plan in place that supports all our our students's consistency um I think that's um important for me at least from looking at this so I do appreciate your help any

140other questions Miss Austin hi thank you I have um three questions just to help me solidify my understanding of this um one is on goal to the identify and Implement a common assessment practice by course so what is meant by that what what courses or is that all courses or how does that actually work that's a great question so it's it's kind of referring back to what Dr Regina was talking about earlier where we have at you know third grade math four fourth grade ELA each of those are kind of already in that area but using that data a little bit differently than we do now but then looking at the specific all the students in a geometry course whether it be at arola or whether it be at the high school and regardless of

141who's teaching it making sure those main courses all are following that consistent common assessment practices okay thank you um and then sort of um related to Miss Purdue's comment on consistency I'm seeing that the building principles are in involved with a lot of um a lot of these achievement of goals and so I'm wondering if that's something that they're receiving professional development on on exactly how this is all to be implemented and monitored yes so that's something that we have started this year um it's also something that we continue to walk on work on with those paired walkthroughs for example so when we're going in together I'm able to talk with a principal not only about what we're seeing in the classroom but how that ties to some of the things that we've been working

142on as an administrative team but these are also things that we'll be looking at as part of our administrative Retreat and work that we plan to do moving into next school year as well and so they'll they'll be able to consistently they'll they'll have that consistency across schools um to be doing that in in a similar way yes yes thank you and then my last question is um uh academic vocabulary so I'm what is actually academic vocabulary and then also um to teach it across several days is that something a onetime thing or is that something implemented within curriculum so academic vocabulary specifically is referring to kind of the the words related to the content so math the vocab of math the vocabulary of social studies in addition to the things that we're teaching what

143we're teaching a particular unit and students need to learn specific say science words related to that unit and then the practice is really for us to kind of establish a consistent practice that we use across classrooms to teach academic vocabulary so right now you might walk into one classroom and perhaps they're um using flashcards and or they're writing definitions of words and things like that this is kind of like a series of practices that we would be teaching to teachers and then expecting to see repeat it in all classrooms across the district okay so when it's saying intensively across several days it means per unit or per instructional exactly yes lesson okay thank you any other questions Miss steel again sorry I had one other comment that I forgot to make before um I just

144want to point out that there is a powerful alignment here when reviewing and when we discussed um the budget and um the impact that special education has had with its increasing costs I Tred to find what current policy recommendations are because there are different resources and research articles and I apologize I did not plan to even speak about this today so I don't remember it and I can't look it up right now but a lot of the papers that I saw one particular one with recommendations on how to address Rising costs in as special education which is not unique to metha and it is happening across the country one of those is to make sure that your core instruction supports structured literacy and strong literacy across k 12 and so I just want to point

145out that this is a very powerful comprehension plan that aligns directly to the discussions that we're having around our budget today and I I wanted to make sure that that was connected thank you good point uh any other questions to my left seeing none to my right any comments questions Miss graph thank you so much for this and I'm gonna apologize UPF front because I need some things clarified or defined um my first question was around career artifacts can you give me some examples of that um so for the our chapter 339 plan we're required at grades 5 eight and 11 to have different numbers of um evidence of planning for a career so um in our fifth grade band we we have resumés that we write we have um uh career days we have

146the field trips that kids take things like that um as we move into the older grades we start doing kind of career surveys so they may use navian for that um they also have opportunities to attend different career related events Career Fairs steam day those types of things and then they do a reflection on them so it's just evidence of different things that we're exposing students to as enabling them to be better prepared for selecting what they want to do next and then planning um academically what the right road is for that so is technical school better for what I want to do in the future is a certain College better for what I want to do in the future so it's it's our collection of evidence um that that we have across the board

147but there are also options within that for students to kind of do things outside of that list if they're more relevant to what they're looking to explore okay and just a quick note next year will'll be seeing the chapter 339 career plan so it's like special ed comprehensive plan chapter 339 all on that threeyear cycle okay so it's all kind of tied together okay I mean I heard you mention the 339 plan but I was like I'm not sure I clarify um my other question is on goal number two the in Target year one it says implement the literacy interventions so are we only talking about literacy here we're focusing on the literacy interventions because we did bring in a few um new things this year Mo most specifically our sips Intervention which we're doing

148K to2 so um that's why the focus of the plan is is mostly on those literacy interventions we of course still have um our math specialist working with students and we have intervention going um for biology as well um but specifically looking at what we have in place for literacy this year because it's new and it's been a focus okay and um I like in the Target year to we talk about a common assessment to to the comment that M drum Miss Austin made and also a system to analyze the data what are we talking about when we say a system to analyze the data is that like you know um a database where you're actually generating information or what does that look like that's really focusing on just a practice that we have within

149the District of utilizing the data we already have our data warehousing system which is linkit um and we are growing in our use of that and our our practices around the use of that but we what we really want to see is a district created system where teachers meet on a regular basis they focus on specific goals and then we work to implement action plans and then reflect on how we're doing great that sounds fantastic um and the other question I had about goal two is the measurable goal statement is to develop a plan that's clearly communicated and implemented so how are we measuring clear communication and implementation well a couple of the things that we have noted um to date are some confusion with teachers about how a student maybe moves through core instruction

150to tier 2 intervention to tier three intervention so that's one of the things we want to make sure that um not only do we have something that teachers can refer to that's very explicit but also that it kind of becomes an natural understanding of teachers and they're able to speak to it just regularly whether it be for their their own practices or when they're communicating with parents at conferences and things like that the other thing that we've noted is that we've had Parents reach out and express that they're not sure how their student gets to get some additional help if they need it or even when there's when they can tell if their student needs that additional help and how they kind of get that information so those are things that we also want to

151make sure we're we're hearing parents say oh I know how to get to that I know that I'm reaching out to the right people um and just kind of making sure that also there's a place that's accessible in the website for parents to go to just kind of making sure the information's out there and the feedback we're getting from parents is more on the lines of I understand what I'm doing and how I can get that help versus reaching out saying I'm not sure what I need but I know my child needs something thing so that sounds to me like you're going to do a baseline assessment sort of some sort of survey of parents now and then you're going to survey them three years from now to verify that you've met the Benchmark that

152you're setting that is something we could we could we're looking more anecdotally right now of what we've been getting from parents but the title of this is measurable goal statement and I don't see a measurable goal when you say clearly communicated and implemented so what I'm I guess I'm just trying to challenge you to potentially create a measurable goal so that you can say yes we clearly have measured that parents now really understand or our teachers more fully understand and offer this to our students when they see an issue and I don't know what that is but I just I think it might be really helpful if we could say well let's even if you survey teachers now and then survey them you know along the way you might see that they really feel more

153comfortable talking about it because they understand it more like that would be measurable but just something to think about yes thank you um and I guess the the other question I had was on the steals goal number three when we talk about and even in the in the literacy goal we're talking about 95% of students in all grades across all grade levels who would take the test yes right yes test takers but just any any of of these standards when you're saying 95% you're saying 95% in all levels not any particular level okay that's great um and the last question I had was in the plan when you talk about provide explicit L literacy instruction can you define that for me like at least tell me a little bit more about what explicit literacy instruction

154means and I know there's probably somebody on the board who could explain it to me so just to start at the beginning right when talking specifically with our our youngest Learners and looking at phonics instruction so we're making sure that we are specifically teaching students letter sound correspondence so to be able to break letter words apart um to to know the the sounds of letters whether they're individual or or um Blends and things like that we historically in the United States we' we've done a lot of you know look at the pictures try to sound it out or context clues those types of things where we haven't really been explicitly teaching students how those letters and those sounds match up to one another so that's that's starting there but then that moves into our work

155with fluency so really modeling for students and helping students practice how to fluently read so that they are able to retain and comprehend and then it moves into those vocabulary practices that we talked about giving them explicit strategies for how to um retain vocabulary and be able to kind of work through word parts to understand new words and what they mean so there's steps that we take that we haven't necessarily always um been doing across the board and consistently okay that's great thank you so much for clarifying any other questions to my right seeing none Dr Walsh uh miss Ricky thank you so much for your presentation this evening it's my understanding that this will be posted online and it'll be available in the Farina administration building um we will not vote on that this

156this month uh but we will vote on it in in March correct correct all right excellent thank you so much and just a quick clarify by uh there will be hard copies available for those people who do not have digital access and free for the next 28 days as well excellent thank you so much yeah sure so after um this comes up from the vote what are the next steps and I think we talked about Ed educ education committee you have the goals how we and we talked about like it was brought up earlier with measuring and accountability so where when can the board expect to get an update from you in reference to how we're doing reference to these goals so we'll continue to provide updates but the first step is and Dr Regina

157alluded to that earlier but coming back in the near future about our literacy plan because of that literacy plan will'll tie in especially the mtss process um and then you'll get a steals update from us at the Ed Committee in March because we're launching a new resource for our steals program um effective July 1 so steals will take place within the next month and the literacy plan will be up dating at some point in the near future to bring everyone up to speed and what that professional development will look like as well you provide like an annual report also do you typically come back to whether it's Ed committee or the board to provide annual report on the progress year yeah that's something we can certainly do it's not the realm yeah I think that

158will help with accountability and ensuring we are on track y could we could it be considered can always talk about this at at committee too could just to um to get some updated data so we're not just getting those one high stakes data that Dibbles data could be very meaningful every once in a while to just to see how we're doing and growing that could be meaningful towards making sure we're headed towards those 10% so that it we fly right over and get to 95% in two years instead of three yeah that'd be great thank you thank you thank you very much and uh last on on the agenda of guest and schedule speakers I've asked Dr graines to just come uh to the board uh for a brief uh few moments to make some

159remarks I think that uh you may have as well as I have had I know I I guess a lot of us are used to seeing the lights going on and off in our own homes recent power outages so I I can imagine theor yeah we we was we were going to be in the dark here in just a second but U I asked you to come forward just to give us a brief uh starting point for where we are in terms of uh you know the challenges associate special ed you you recall back in January there were there were some there were some comments that that were made um we've got some feedback from members of the uh uh special education Alliance and and and and whatnot that uh they were concerned about some

160of the the language that we we use as part of the conversation about the budget and I just want to make sure that the board as well as our public and and most importantly our students and parents know exactly the focus that we have here uh in the district while you know it it's it's the specialed costs have have risen as a as as a result of uh of of our our decisions um they can also uh be very uh prudent in making sure that um we're continuing to provide a quality uh uh program for the district and make improvements in that program uh to help students today and well into the future and it does take a village to to do that and it does take some time to do that but this evening

161I just want Dr graines to kind of start us off and like uh I believe Mr wers mentioned uh we will ask Dr gra to come back monthly to give us an update on where we uh where we stand with some of the progress so with that Dr graines thank you so uh first and foremost at methacton we are dedicated to providing a highquality safe and appropriate education for all students we believe in inclusion and including students in their least restrictive environment as appropriate while providing a Continuum of supports and services for their individualized needs We are continuing to refine our program to better support our students today and in the future with that in mind we've been focused on over oversight and accountability structure compliance and analyzing our thirdparty vendor services to ensure our

162students are receiving the best supports and services that are designed to meet their unique needs over the next several months my team and I will be updating the public and the board of school directors on our commitment to all students in this District I'll provide a progress update on our work towards these areas of focus and will'll provide recommendations for improvements thank you thank you Dr graines and Madame President that ends our uh scheduled speakers for this evening just to look forward we have uh for next week we have the spirit of methacton we are looking to recognize uh some wonderful uh staff members and students and volunteers from Arrowhead we also have the M Awards uh so we're pleased to share uh some of the the winnings uh uh athletic and activity program uh

163Dr Regina is going to invite the east Sports uh team and uh we're excited uh to to hear back from them I asked Dr serini to give us an update on the arrowhead uh project no the ottobon uh uh sale uh project and then last uh we do have the Shader group and Cha coming uh they'll have an exercise uh for the board and give us an update on that we'll go into the reports um and they'll be uh you know presented um we'll have a public comment board action items at that time and then we have fiscal items Miss Stephy there are six fysical items on the agenda for consideration 9A list of bills 9B Treasurer report 9 C budgetary transfers 9d 25 26 member services budget approve the mciu member services budget for

164the 2526 school year in the amount of 1,561 180 9e management trustee appointment approve Kimberly Stephy as the methon school district trustee for the bucks Montgomery healthc care Consortium for a 2-year period beginning July 1 2025 and commencing June 30th 2027 9f high school photography vendor approve the agreement with cadf ham paa to provide photography services to methacton high school as outlined in the attached agreement thank you Miss Stephy are there any questions from members of the board on any fiscal items Miss alustin yes thank you um just a question on the high school photography vendor is there was there feedback gathered about the photography vendor at all before moving forward yeah um so there was uh there was a uh a report uh produced by Dr uker that was submitted to the board as

165part of the Friday memo um so in that it basically outlined uh a number of challenges in our first year with them um and the feedback and the and the modifications that the group had or the company had made in order to accommodate the uh the need for the for the high school it talked about getting feedback from the home in school um I'm trying to remember what else I talked in there and and and recognizing that there certainly were challenges in the beginning so maybe some of you on the board had had experienced that with your own children as part of of that part of that process but it it is recommended from the high school administration that we do a one more one more year uh based on the the the current status

166of their their work with the district and the change in their uh representative that they that they put forward to represent the company and to obviously represent M any other questions or or comments from to my left to my right Miss clar so I also had some questions about this particular contract um and I I recognize you may not be able to answer them but I hoping to sort of sort it out before next week's voting session certainly the contract it looks like it's last year the current Year's contract like it's not a current contract so it says on there 24 or 25 so uh I guess my first question would be um do we have the contract that the administration wants to execute because I would like to see that are any changes proposed

167from that contract to this contract um and then and if not I guess I'd like to know that but then try to understand if there are parts that we can renegotiate so like when I looked at um Dr UK's memo that you supplied the board with one of the things that she noted was a challenge from parents or you know maybe a complaint from parents um was the travel to horam for the for the pictures and I was lucky enough at the time when my kids were here that of course it was right here at the school um through a different vendor so my question I guess is did we try to uh have all of the photography done here at the school is there a reason why we can't do it that that parents

168do have to travel to hores him I read the contract I realized they do two Road shows the road shows are here for senior pictures but I didn't really understand uh what how you compare that to when we had the different vendor and all the pictures were done here was it more than two sessions how many kids could get in a road show um in the current environment was there not enough space for them and that's why they had to go to hesam I I do have like a number of questions but I guess at the end of The Day My overall reaching overreaching question is if hem isn't ham seems like a like a a distance and if that was a complaint could we have we tried to renegotiate the contract to see if

169we could have it here all of the pictures or does the administration or more or is there a reason why the administration doesn't want that to happen um and maybe it's not an administration's um Choice maybe it's the vendor I just want wanted to see if we if that was a renegotiation point um or not and um there was a section in the contract called incentives um and two of the things that were listed was a a $2,000 culture credit and um a camera for the yearbook uh I guess committee which is all great um but I was wondering how does the how did those incentives compared to what we had with our prior vendor um and is there anything else we could be negotiating for so I know that's a lot I can put

170it in I'm not gonna have any of the yeah if you don't mind that that would actually be helpful we could expedite you know any of these questions so I'd appreciate that yeah just something I was think about certainly excellent questions and I apologize I can't give you those I didn't expect you to um and I apologize for not calling you sooner about it but it was kind of a last minute I think these are very important questions uh that we we certainly get the answers uh as soon as we possibly can and if we don't have them uh we just kind of pull this back until prepared that that was my last question was whether there's like some hard deadline that we need to probably in the next couple months we should have this

171squared away because otherwise the option is we got to go to somebody else if we if we're not going to do this okay well then I'll then I'll write something if you get them if you get them to me I'd appreciate that thank you so much thank you any other question Mr wyers yeah just for clarification I think there is a typo on 91 where it says an a decrease of $2,900 It's actually an increase that is correct thank you m graph I think you were partly hand raised yeah I I um I did review the information that Dr uker put together on the ktie photographer I along with Miss Alston had the same question as to whether we have surveyed the parents to get feedback on their experience because it was pretty rough in

172the beginning and if they made improvements and they've done things to help make that process smoother then parent feedback should be really positive and i' I'd really like to get that kind of feedback I the admin ation thought that this this group was doing a good job when parents were really upset with the with what was happening so I don't know that as the administration you can actually see what the experience is like and while they seem to have addressed the concerns um I will say one of the concerns for me was that they Katie specifically told people who wanted their child's cap and gown photos that it was a contractual limitation that they could not release those photos because of the contract between the district and ktie so I would definitely want to see

173the contract to make sure we have removed that from the contract moving forward and I don't think we have because the contract that was provided is last year's so so there's a number of things I mean I I'm of the mindset that we probably need more information before we can make this decision um and maybe we do need to put it off a little bit so we can get a little more information I think that I mean if Katie has done the work that they've said they've done and and things are going great then I'm not opposed to you know giving them another year to see how it goes but I think we'd like a little feedback at least I would like a little feedback Mak sense thank you um any other comments on yeah

174Miss Miss Altin just to follow up on that as well I I think because we have not seen the current contract the last year's contract still says two Road shows it's still um they're still saying about the photo release um can we put this off and get some information and get some feedback from parents too because I really think it's important that this next contract will incorporate what we find to be the top three or so complaints from the parents that they had with the process this year yeah Liz likely uh while we were having these this conversation going through my mind is there's no way this is going to be ready for next week okay yeah so you could probably yeah you could probably uh guarantee that this is going to be all okay

175love love that thank you any other questions on matters of for finance seeing none Personnel Dr suen good evening and thank you for the consideration of the board this month there are the following Personnel items there's one resignation administrator Dr Matthew Walsh director of curriculum instruction and assessment resignation for retirement in September Dr Walsh is concluding a more than three decades long career that included teaching in both Florida and Pennsylvania and Service as a building principal and Central Administration director in several school districts including methacton for the past five years as the leader of the curriculum instruction and assessment work of the district Dr Walsh has guided the district through the implementation of mtss social emotional and Trauma informed learning initiatives the development of a curriculum cycle and the implementation of numerous new learning resources

176and instructional and assessment practices the methacton family is grateful to Dr Walsh for's dedicated service to the students and staff of our community and we wish him all the very best in his much deserved retirement there's one resignation professional Kathleen Fontanella teacher of third grad at Arrowhead also a resignation for retirement at the conclusion of the 2425 school year after 20 years of dedicated service to the students of methacton the methacton family is grateful to Cath for her exceptional dedication to her students and the dynamic instruction that she provided and we also wish her well and her much deserved retirement there's one resignation classified Stephanie tyion par professional instructional assistant at the high school we thank Stephanie for her dedicated service to the students of M Acton there are multiple Employments classified we do have

177some changes in this area that we will be addressing and there will be some updates on the Action meeting agenda there are five changes of status classified Theodore nit hour from custodian at arola Sky to utility grounds person at Farina shyed Ford Bay from custodian at the high school to utility grounds person at finina hej ghob from monitoring assistant at the high school to office assistant at Worcester Jenna Garcia from personal care assistant at arola to monitoring assistant at the high school and Mary schlanker from personal from personal care assistant at arola to power professional at Sky View and we thank Ted Shai hej Jenna and Mary for taking on these roles there are two uncompensated leaves professional Kelsey rawa speech language pathologist at Arrowhead and Laura pacello third grade teacher at Eagleville for the

178dates listed there are two uncompensated leaves classified Gloria Rosado personal care assistant at Arrowhead and John derone Jr custodian at Sky View for the dates listed there is one sabatical leave Jennifer spec special education instructor of the high school for the 25 26 school year and there are three supplemental contracts for homebound instruction thank you thank you Dr s any questions for Dr serini to my left Miss puru thank you um I have a question on 10f um two and three in reference to the new positions um we have it on on about March 26 starting I'm guessing what is the timeline for that like position is it through the end of the school year or yes that would be through the end of the school year those are two uh student interns who would

179be be working directly with the Communications Department so is there um do you know why we don't have it in Timeline there we're going to add that okay can we have that added thank you any other questions my left Miss olon yeah thank you I was also wondering about um 10 F2 and three uh first of all I think it's great I I love that we're doing this I just was wondering about um how many hours a week or what what can we expect um from these students certainly the students will each be working approximately four hours a week over 14 weeks of the spring semester so it does go to the end of the school year the two high school juniors will be joining the communications team as interns the students will be tasked

180with providing photography and also videography at District events including Athletics and after school programs and also creating content for the district social media platforms and website that's great thank you um and then I just had a question about 10 J2 I thought I heard you say utility grounds person at Verina this says facilities so I don't know if there's something that needs to be changed in the agenda it is facilities may have misspoken I apologize thank you any other questions Miss K no I just wanted to comment to Dr Walsh it's been a pleasure working with you I look forward to you finishing out this year successfully and um thank you for everything that you've done for the district thank any of the comments Mr wyers yeah I want to remind Mr doc Dr Walsh

181that the STS has a sub list so you're welcome to join that thank you any other questions on Personnel seeing none uh we move on to ccul and programs uh Dr Regina my apologies we're trying to troubleshoot some technology as the computer restarted on our two members so we're able to get it back up and running now so for cc and programs uh to approve the 25 to through 28 Matha and comprehensive plan document following the 28 day public review February 19th and March 18th and just a reminder for the board this is just a document that it's on the review it will be a voted item on the March 25th 2025 agenda excellent thank you and then on the policy yep and so for policy this evening uh for first read uh we do

182have three policies 702 gifts grants and donations 704 maintenance and 705 five facilities and workplace safety uh very few modifications to this mainly formatting uh and then one particular line for gifts grants and donations to clarify um communication of of gifts uh there are none for second read U because we did not have any first trate items last month and then ultimately uh suspension of policies which is to approve the indefinite suspension of policy 103A discrimination harassment affecting students and policy 104a discrimination and harassment affecting staff as a result of recent changes to law um a as we have spoke about back when the 2024 regulations were instituted and there was an injunction placed on five of the seven of our schools um the changes to this policy specifically uh to to what you read

183between the the regs is process oriented it's most things that people would not recognize it's how we operate within the domains of Title 9 the students that are protected under the 2020 rags and the 2024 Rags are the same there are no changes that is defined by the Pennsylvania humans relations commission and and what a lot of the states are arguing is the definition when they consider the basis of sex as it's written into policy and that is defined by our Pennsylvania human relations commission as sex assigned to birth sexual orientation transgender identity gender transition gender identity and or gender expression and those are all protected under the Pennsylvania commission which then translates to Title 9 so our protections do not change also to note we have of all the Title claims that I process

184I have never processed a 2024 claim in the district we have only processed 2020 claims because the two schools that I 2024 claims didn't have any 20 24 uh claims against it so we have never even operated under the new law and so all those protections are still going to be the same for our students so thank you any questions for Dr Regina on the policy matters see none we move on to other we have gifts and donations we have approve a generous gift from the vanise foundation uh through the winter uh track team in amount of $4,000 we also have approv a generous gift from n Nisa baby grand piano uh from Sharon Hipp and steel uh at Arcola valued at $10,000 and proove a generous gift for Acme uh Food Markets nourishing neighbors

185program uh for the backpack program in the amount of $3,000 uh no trips uh Transportation there's a list of uh drivers uh for for the roster to be approved and in on 13d is approved the 2526 uh calendar as attached are there any questions on any matters under other yes Miss steal yep just for uh item 13d for the calendar is it possible for us to no no okay is it possible for us to remove the tenative from 11 for the high school graduation date so we we've typically uh had so so about it was was either two years ago or possibly three years ago where the the board made the decision that going forward we would put on the calendar the date of graduation prior to that time period graduation was not listed the

186actual date of graduation was not listed and it was typically announced uh January February of the year of uh going into that that Year's graduation of when uh uh the graduation date would be set so in order to better accommodate our families and to give them a better uh uh uh you know more uh advanced notice of when graduation is likely to be mean when I say likely most likely to be barring any unforeseen circumstances so give you an example there could be things that uh would impact our schedule that could require us by law to push the uh the the last couple days of school back further and there's things called the state subsidy that would be impacted if we wouldn't uh have the seniors come to school on those dates and and if

187that would ever occur that would be a decision before the board that would say we're willing to forgo the state subsidy uh so that we could have this or we could have that or it may be so many days that you might choose not to forgo that subsidy and then have to move graduation so it's always been for the last three years once once we've made the announcement of when graduation would tentatively be to keep tentatively marked on the calendar so I hope that is is uh you know a suitable explanation but that is the the the explanation uh and and that is uh you can see in all the past two the past two years calendars it says tedly as well so with that are there any other questions uh Miss Austin just a

188comment um to thank the administration for incorporating some of the new and newer holidays into this calendar um I know we've gotten community feedback um I do see deali I see I believe two Eid holidays reflected on this calendar so um just want to thank you for making this work for our diverse Community thank you um Miss grab yeah I have a question about November 26th it's listed as a makeup day number one would that be like a snow makeup day yes can we move that into something later like in February or March I it's highly unlikely that we're going to have a snow day before the 26th of November and if we did you know that's one thing but it's significantly more likely that we would have one sometime say in January February December

189January February so why are we putting it before we actually anticipate snow well I don't I don't know if um we were not we're not anticipating snow you know prior to but but but your point is that if you put it at you know uh March for example um you're you're you're more likely to have snow be but sometime before March to be able to to do that but I I don't know Dr Walsh was there a reason we to use uh that date for November and I fully understand that in the past we had three in the calendar so like some of the others have been removed and we now have one so that's a good question the reason why we've placed it here over the past several years is uh We've also it's

190not just for snow it's inclement weather and we've had some uh post hurricanes tropical storms that c wre some some damage in the area in September and and October you might remember the bridge for example that went out a few years ago so that's builing as inclement weather day and that traditionally um has been a day off for students and teachers if we don't need that to use that day as a makeup day so we put that in there as a result of some of the inclimate weather happens before the real winter season begins because we also have those flexible instructional days that we can use in addition to this one snow makeup day or inclimate weather makeup day I guess what I'm asking is why would we not want to have the makeup day

191towards the end of the school year so it could cover any issue that happens from August all the way through as late in the year as possible and not have to push us into adding another day the end of the year right like I I guess that's what I'm asking I'll defer to Dr uh we can certainly take take that into consideration but uh We've typically had snow makeup days built into the calendar I think we do we and correct me if I'm wrong do we do we butt those up against other specific days yeah that's that's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving vacation than yeah I guess the other the other time frame I'm looking at is the April holidays like if you added it in as April 7th it would be buted up against the

192holiday week and and then you could still use it or not use it but it would be late enough in the year that if you had a snow or you had a big storm or a spring storm you could still use the day I I I guess I'm just going to say I would just challenge you to think about the most effective use of the time rather than just putting it in November where it's been for a long time which I understand it's been there for a long time there there's also there's also if I could do there's also some timing stuff too with that as well so if you lose a day in your first marking period or in the first semester you want to have the opportunity to not shift too many days

193into the spring semester and so there is a piece to try to make make that time up if you were to lose a day but not as big of an issue with fit days anymore yeah any other questions on on the calendar um Miss Alon how how many flexible instruction days do we get we've been approved for five each year for the next this year and the next two years okay thank you seeing no other questions thank you Dr Walsh and that ends the agenda items Madame President as you see listed we have dates for board members calendars um anything for old business or new business from the board right seeing none then I will move to Courtesy of the floor the board of school directors will now provide an opportunity for residents to make

194comments on matters that are or may be before the board the board asks that you keep your comments to three minutes or less and the board of directors may choose to respond to matters following the conclusion of the comments you could also submit your questions via email at information maa.org Jim Alik War sest uh you guys spent more time on the calendar than you spent on the budget I mean that's crazy but I'll help you with your budget here's something you want to cut how about cutting Dei completely like everybody else doing government Disney when Disney Cuts Dei you know it's got to go um I can't believe I heard Mr Winters say and to correct me if I'm wrong you randomly picked a tax increase at like 5.1% so you could get the votes

195for it is that what you actually said a random tax increase to get the votes you need to go you need to step down that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard uh Chay all's well at mathon talk again okay um you went to the Zerby School of narratives because that's how it goes really there's nothing everything's fine everything's great but you made a point to say you weren't going to go back and look at prepandemic scores I was going to give you those scores tonight I went to the website to go look at those scores can't get them the site's corrupted the data is corrupted I couldn't get it to present it to you the 28 18 levels so if your levels right now were the same or less than 2018 scores you have

196a problem right so if you don't look for a problem you're not going to find a problem so that's that's my complaint with the presentation so what I would do if I were you we know AP is great we got a bunch of selfmotivated people doing great go look at 2018 and compare it to your little range you show that gives us the best impression um the rankings are out Niche rankings most recent Niche rankings your best school is your high school 43 Arrowhead your new school is 396 US News and World Report best school your high school the oldest school the one you want to destroy 68 Arrowhead your brand new school 405 can anybody explain how that works how is your newest school one of the worst ranked in your oldest school that

197you want to destroy is your best rank school maybe it's not the building maybe it's what's inside you need to think about it and scrap your project thank you anyone else for thank you good evening John Andrews Lower Providence I continue to be troubled by by the want of a new high school and its cost and no limits on likely in interest cost perhaps an extra $30 million of Interest beyond what was originally estimated estimated by pfm at million I say the interest cost is likely increasing because of the uh interest rates that that the buyers of bonds are demanding because because of rising Federal deficits $37 trillion further I question Dr zerby's recommendation for a new high school that lacks any detailed Pro or con information about a renovation I I do not I

198do not understand why renovation is absolutely forgiven or I'm sorry AC removed I note no facility assessment suggested demolition sadly the recent special ed exception over spending shows concern for Education versus the new high school facility costs the special ed cost in the budget is approximately $8 million whereas the new facility cost of the high school is composed of of three three of three portion uh three uh three different cost items one is 200 200 million for new high school but I think based on the most recent uh presentation last month that's 200 million for for for the new construction uh 225 million for the interest cost and 119 million of non-cash cost due to the demolition of the existing building what hidden facts cause director silence on these issues perhaps directors can I'm sorry

199excuse me the the three minutes is up I just have one short sentence left perhaps directors can demand an electoral vote for renovation or a new high school renovation cost [Music] is and I note that the the cost of renovation is only 29% of the cost of the new high school as planned thank you thank you Brian Earnshaw Lower Providence um one additional date for the districts and the board members calendars um Monday February 24th the Zoning Board hearing uh is continuing with Lower Providence it's at arola and the matter before the zoning hearing board is an appeal of a decision relating to um the establishment of a home 60b homeless shelter on the grounds of vable Hospital uh the board and the administration should get involved in this matter and be become intimately aware

200what's going on and hopefully speak out against this this facility will be within walking distance of three schools within the district so I think it's very important that the board becomes knowledgeable what's going on so far the township has done a very bad job in communicating this I don't know if they've communicated this to the board or the administration but I encourage everyone here to go to that meeting on Monday at arola I believe it's at 7M um and get an understanding what's going on um back to the budget I'm amazed that 5.1% was a totally arbitrary number it's very disappointing that that's what this budget process has devolved into equally disappointing is that it got approved at the January meeting nobody asked where 5.1% came from or whether that was sufficient to fund the

201district and it was approved again tonight um by seven members of the board and it included a $1.1 million plug the Assumption you're taking money out of the general fund a lot of work to be done um and I'm willing to help I mean anybody on the board who wants to contact me what to look at in the budget just Dr Zerby has my email address email me I'm glad to help couple things you can take a look at interest income the FED reason articles indicate the fed's going to slow down with the rate decreases I think the assumptions in next year's budget should be Revisited ask the administration to provide you a list of every employee in the district and reconcile their salaries that total to what's included in the budget take a look

202at how many vacant positions there are if they've been vacant for a while question are they really necessary to be in the budget if not take them out take a look at the administrative staff do you really need all the administrators over the recent years the administrative staff has grown is the administrative staff willing to take any salary concessions to support no High School those that are in favor of it take a look at every single line in the budget and look at the assumptions behind it that's one thing that's been missing especially in those projections that were put together to support a new high school so I'm willing to help my contact information is available ask me any questions send me information glad to take a look at it your call thank you any

203additional comments seeing none any comments or questions from the board all right seeing none can I have a motion to adjourn Mr Winters can I have a second Miss Alon meeting is adjourned